Consultants to be hired at cost of £100,000 to check NHS centre plans
APPROVAL HAS BEEN GRANTED TO HEALTH TRUST’S PROPOSALS
CONSULTANTS will be employed at a cost of £100,000 to carry out due diligence checks on plans for an NHS health centre on the former Broadmarsh Centre site.
Plans for the cutting-edge medical facility, which will provide MRI, CT, X-rays and ultrasound scans, have been approved by Nottingham City Council.
The new community diagnostic centre, staffed by Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH), aims to cut waiting lists, diagnose conditions earlier and free up hospital space.
It will be situated where the par- tially-demolished Broadmarsh shopping centre once stood, with a park named Green Heart currently under construction as part of area regeneration plans.
Once the building is completed at a cost of £25 million, NUH will lease it from the council.
The council has now allocated up to £100,000 for external consultants to conduct “due diligence and technical checks” on the plans.
According to delegated decision documents, NUH has agreed to cover the full costs. An additional £90,000 had previously been approved for similar work.
The documents state that while the trust is responsible for designing the building and addressing any issues, the council’s team needs to carefully monitor the trust’s developing design proposals to identify any potential problems with the developing design documents.
“The documents say: “The RIBA Stage 3 design has been issued by the Trust which amounts to more than 180 documents.
“These documents need to be reviewed by a project manager, civil and structural engineer, M&E engineer and the council’s master planners, to ensure there are no issues.
“This is a significant piece of work to execute in a short period of time, and so external consultant support (project manager and design team) are required.”
Checks must also be done on the leasing of the site, so as to ensure it does not compromise the delivery of the future master plan proposals.
“Funding is coming from the Department for Health and Social Care, which announced money for 13 new community diagnostic centres, including one in Mansfield.
The centre will provide more than 140,000 appointments each year, and, once it is at full capacity, it will employ 135 staff including consultant radiologists, radiographers, imaging assistants, physiologists and administrators.
Mark Simmonds, deputy medical director for Nottingham University Hospitals Trust, said in February: “This is a fantastic opportunity for the people of Nottingham and the NHS as whole to be part of the regeneration of this area.
“Many people have called Broadmarsh an eyesore in the past. We will reuse of some buildings in Lister Gate that look out on to the Broadmarsh site. It will be unrecognisable.
“Delays to diagnostics are too long and this marks an opportunity to deliver greater capacity in an accessible place.
“People from the whole of Nottingham can benefit without coming to constrained hospital sites. This will be a part of the NHS on your high street.
“We are looking forward to getting boots on the ground.”
The new facility will hopefully help revive struggling Lister Gate, which has become tired and largely empty after a mass exodus of shops like Marks & Spencer Home, Boots, Shoe Zone, and WH Smith.
The major brands left the city street after the closure of the Broadmarsh shopping centre in 2021, which Nottingham City Council is redeveloping.